Involuntary Cohabitation
by Colorslander
Summary: Lightning and Caius during Valhalla. They're like an old married couple, but with more attempted murder.


** Involuntary Cohabitation**

**-x-**

Lightning firmly believes people are not meant to live forever. Not because it goes against the laws of nature and disrupts the cycle of life, although those are perfectly good reasons as well. No, it's because the longer you know someone, the more they will frustrate and embitter you, and a centuries worth of proximity is enough to make her homicidal (more than normal).

Every stupid little habit repeated a million times, every vice given into during a never ending stretch of time, their accent, the tempo of their walk, the nervous way they chew, living with such things for eternity is simply unimaginable.

It's maddening.

The severity of such annoyances magnify to biblical proportions with a small company of two, there's no way to spread that annoyance around and deflect one's attention. This is the story of Lightning and Caius, and how Lightning truly believes Caius is the most grating of aspiring mass murderers she has come to know.

Partly because that person is _clearly_ in love with himself; she is sure he is because it's the only reasonable explanation. She's never met a man with prettier, well-kept hair, clean faced with a close shave, and she is positive he exfoliates from the way his skin glows. She can imagine him primping before every battle, practicing his lines in the same overblown, theatrical way he talks, and smiling at himself in the mirror. She hates it.

She hates the way he carries his sword, not only does it look like it's been designed by an over excited twelve year old raised on a diet of solely sugar, but he just holds it in front of him like he's displaying the thing to be ogled and praised. She hates how melodramatic he is all the time, whether he is praising her combat skills like he's never seen it before (and he's seen it in countless battles), or when he's moaning about Yeul. And she hates the way he walks, a slow, deliberate stalk, like a lion strutting for the cameras.

What she hates most is that stupid smirk, the right corner of his lips curl up in a self-satisfied grin as he stands smugly, towering over her by a head, like he already won. What a dick.

At the end of the battle, they're panting heavily, sweat pouring off them like rancid rainwater, and hair matted to their neck. They can barely move their arms, they've been swinging swords for so long that their limbs may as well be made of lead, but they move like they are made of flan.

Lightning feels like a dead man but she tries to keep standing, leaning on her gunblade for support, and notices that Caius is also on his feet, not even swaying. He's doing his best to look controlled, which just irritates Lightning more. Rather than pant for breath, he tries to hide his exhaustion by taking deep breaths through his nose, nostril flaring in exertion. It makes an awful noise she's already tired of.

"Stop that," she says crossly, taking a breath between the words.

"Stop what?"

"Breathing."

Caius looks slightly confused, "Well, yes. I think that's the eventual goal for both of us."

"For the love of Etro," Lightning groans at his inability to get the point. That's annoying too. "Can't you just breathe the normal way? It's annoying."

"There is nothing wrong with the way I breathe," he says turning his nose up at her, he tries to take a swing at her with his sword, but the combined weariness and the absolute irrationality of its girth lets him do no such thing, so he just stumbles a little over his feet.

"Ugh, even the way you swing your sword is irritating," she says taking a knee.

"You should be more worried about the pain you will have to endure once it slices through you," he shoots back, glaring back through a chiseled stare.

"I'm not scared of a man who spends just as much time practicing sword play as he does brushing his hair."

Caius does not deny that remark. Instead he says, "This comes from a woman who spends every five minutes brushing her bangs out of her eyes, but refuses to cut them."

Caius barely dodges the weak ruinaga.

-x-

Caius once tells Lightning that he thinks her armor is absurd. The more time he thinks about it, and he's had a few centuries equivalent to ponder, the more ridiculous it looks to him. Her pink flesh peaks out in random splots, and the armor tries to make up for the lack of steel there with ridiculous spikes at her knees and elbows; he wonders if she ever accidentally pokes herself.

"You know what they say about glass houses," Lightning says red faced, she will never admit she has poked herself before. But she'll be damned if she gets lectured by a man wearing an overgrown rubber onesie.

"This," he says indignantly pointing dramatically (stupidly Lightning thinks) to himself, "Is a traditional Pulse guardian garb. It speaks of the culture of the land that long predates your manufactured ones. It's handed down to the finest and bravest warriors of Paddra."

"It's hideous."

"Of course you would say that," Caius says smoothing down the nonsensical flap in the front, "Those from Cocoon are often racist."

"Don't give me that crap," she says pointing her sword at him. "You can't call racist everytime you're called out on something. Cultural relativism is a meant to be an explanation, not an automatic justification."

"It's racism because you mock my culture by looking down on something you do not understand."

"No one would understand that!" She waves her arm at him from the head to the feet. Is that supposed to be leather or something? "Question then, how long does it take you to put that on?"

Caius doesn't dignify with the answer, "And when you dress in your armor, how many times to you accidentally stab yourself?"

Next time Lightning goes in for her Legion of One combo, she jabs him with the point end of her elbow for good measure.

-x-

"Warrior Goddess, now we cross swords!" Caius proclaims, his voice booms across the emptiness of Valhalla.

Lightning looks up from sweeping, no sword in sight and worn broom in hand.

"Not now Caius," Lightning scowls, and dismissively shoos him away with a flap of her arms.

"A battle of destiny cannot be dissuaded for household chores," he declares.

Lightning 'harumps' begins to brush the dust in his direction, letting the wind drift it to him. Caius raises a brow.

"I'm cleaning," Lightning says pettily.

During the first battle cycles, Lightning doesn't bother with tidying up their mess, after all there's the entirety of reality on the line, and scrubbing out footprints wasn't exactly a priority. But between destroying entire buildings, carcasses of dead summoned animals left to rot on the stairs of the temple, and Caius constantly tracking mud on the whitewashed stone, Lightning finds that she couldn't ignore the disorder anymore. It is impossible to walk without tripping on some sort of rubble and the dust constantly makes her sneeze.

She'd prefer to stop Caius' invasions at the bank of the ocean of chaos, at least that way the tide would wash away any Gorgonopsid corpse and there is really no infrastructure to destroy. Unfortunately, Caius is the most infuriating person she knows so it rarely goes according to plan, and she's left to pick up the disarray herself.

So screw Caius. If he's going to cause a mess then he can damn well wait.

"I wait for neither man nor gods," he says.

"Then pick up a broom and help me," she says not even bothering to look up.

He casts her a dull, long suffering look before casually casting Aerora. The wind isn't as powerful as normal, but it still sweeps across marble floor and the dust and dirt is carried away, leaving it to polish in the twilight of Valhalla.

She looks at him disbelievingly.

"You don't know all of my tricks, warrior goddess," he says flatly. "Do you think that I would suffer Yeul to sleep in a dirty house?"

-x-

When Lightning sends Mog to Serah, she's a mix of emotions. On one hand, she fears for the safety of her sister, but on the other, she's always been confident of her strength. She's overprotective, but she's not blind, she knows the younger Farron will do fine.

"You really think your sister can change the future?" Caius says smirking like an asshole.

"No, your asskicking was always in the stars," she says before spinning into a blitz. He jumps away and lands lightly on his feet.

"I would think that you would want to leave your fate in… sturdier hands."

Lightning frowns at the insinuation, "What are you trying to say?"

"I respect all my adversaries, no matter their appearance," he says before casting a gravity spell, to which Lightning throws up a shell. "But it would not harm her to maybe consume a behemoth steak once in awhile."

"What the hell, Caius!?" she's shouting now. "Look who's talking, your Yeul looks like she'd get blown away by an Adamantoise fart."

The next swing of his sword is a particularly brutal one, even blocked she's sent flying.

He seethes. "Yuel has no need to gain muscles. The weight she carries is one of the world's time, and she does so with grace. What is your sister's excuse?"

"She's naturally small. But she's always been strong, and especially smart. Did you know she scored a full scholarship to one of the top universities?" Although Lightning isn't sure Caius knows what a university is, but if he didn't he wouldn't admit it.

"Yeul has memorized every type of flower for medicinal purposes and can easily cure a man as kill him with poison."

"Serah's always been one of the top competitors in archery while we lived in Cocoon."

"Yeul's voice has been hailed as one blessed by the gods."

"Serah published a paper a critically applauded paper on the history of Pulse."

"Yeul has witness all of history."

Their weapons are dropped, forgotten, as the two begin bragging about their two girls, spitting stories the way proud parents take out pictures of their children.

"My Yeul," says Caius in a tone that denotes assured victory, "did not become engaged to _Snow."_

"You bastard."

-x-

There are no toilets in Valhalla.

There is also no need to eat, to cook, no extranet to explore, no people to hold conversation (not like she did that much anyway), no fireworks in celebration, no music to listen to, no crime to police, no sport events to attend.

In short there is not much to do, and there's not much to help her relax.

This makes being in Valhalla a land of extremes, it alternates between long stretches of mindnumbing boredom, punctuated by adrenaline filled struggles against death.

In the moments of lifelessness, Lightning's not really left much to do but wander in circles, practicing sword swings. The architecture is pretty to look at, for sure, but it's the same pretty for eternity. Once you seen one shrine to Etro, you've seen them all.

One day she manages to find a room of literature, there aren't enough books in it to call it a library, but it's better than nothing. The scrolls are molded yellow, dusty, and crinkle in its age. It's not written in Cocoon script or Pulse. It must be an original language, one left for the gods.

She's not much of a scholar, but time makes up for lack of skill. She picks a relatively short scroll with only a few lines and begins her best to translate. It takes her awhile, but she manages to decode some of the lines and she realizes its poetry about the gods.

A few more words and she comes to a second revelation.

Divine poetry is pretty terrible.

Forget being a scholar, poetry is definitely not her forte, but wow. Even she knows this is bad.

"_For love of Etro, glory to her crystal skin, her hair moving like a flan in the wind_."

Lightning crinkles her nose, the metaphors make no sense, there's no clear rhyme scheme, and the word usage is embarrassing.

Suddenly Caius appears, bursting through window ready for a fight in typical fabulous fashion, the expanse of Valhalla is his backdrop and he stands in impressive stature. If Lightning ate, she would vomit on his shoes.

When he sees what is in her hand he lowers his sword.

"Ah! I see you have seen the poetry of gods," he nods. "It is quite beautiful."

Lightning looks at him incredulously. "Are you serious? I wouldn't use this to wipe my ass."

Caius looks scandalized, "I am no lover of the gods, but art is something that cleanses the soul. You stand in the presence of genius, a composer of words and emotions."

"Her skin glows like a fira cast on a meketon," she reads dully.

A tear of appreciation forms in Caius's eye.

"Are you serious?"

No wonder Caius speaks in melodrama.

Ever since that day (moment? Hour? How does one measure time in timelessness), she sees Caius in a new light. Now whenever he speaks in the overly flowery prose of his, she pictures him reciting bad divine poetry, and somehow, it made all his spouts of ridiculous challenges and overly stagey monologues a little more tolerable. You have to find entertainment somewhere.

-x-

Lightning sometimes muses about useless things in the timeless hours spent between cleaning and fighting. For example, she is now thinking about how unreliable a lot of the men in her life were. There was her father, whom she loved with all her heart, but was a half-step behind punctuality and took a long time to get to a point, his head was constantly in the clouds. Then there was Snow, who is much the same but who she loves with significantly less severity. There's a few of the men from unit, but she outstretched them even as a rookie. There was Hope who is destined for great things, but it's hard to imagine because she knew his as a floundering child that fell to the folly of youth, and there was Sazh, a great man but she wonders if he was born an old, complaining man.

It seems it was Caius that is the most dependable, consistent man in her life.

This nauseous thought is what makes Lightning fight him this time with incredibly vigor. Her enthusiasm doesn't change much, because Lightning already knows all of Caius's moves and vice versa. She knows the way he slashes heavy but slow, only to follow up with shallow, faster gashes. Or the way he tenses before he turns into his Bahamut. And most annoying, the stupid smirk he gives right as when he's about to be finished, and then casts Body and Soul and buffs himself.

Maybe the fight was blood pumping, dry mouth inducing, nerves tingling the first hundred times they clashed, but it slowly became a dull routine. Sometimes she even lets her mind wander during the clashes, waking up mentally and wonder how she got there, the way one blanks out when driving their airbike.

"Why don't you ever change it up sometimes?" she says annoyed, as she effortlessly parries his jab.

Caius frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Like, new moves. Turning into a dragon is impressive the first few times but now it's tiresome."

Caius balks, because she knows that he likes to think if nothing else, he is impressive. "I have yet to see you transform into a divine beast."

"Divine is stretching it," she shrugs.

"Are you giving me tips in how to defeat you, warrior goddess? Do you wish for your end so soon?" he asks, his already square jaw is more rigged in irritation. His chin is up and he's looking down at her past his nose in defiance.

Lightning snorts, "Please, you couldn't beat me if you turned into _three_ dragons. I'm just telling you to make it more interesting for me."

"My art in the battlefield was shaped from centuries of constant warfare until it molded into pure excellence."

"Please, we've been fighting for an equivalent for centuries and you haven't changed your habits once. It's not the best of the best, you're just being a stubborn idiot scared of trying new things. Sure your sword is big, but the way you use it is boring."

"If you want things to be interesting, then why must it be me?" Caius says low, "You're fighting style is dull and repetitive."

Lightning sputtered, "Excuse me?"

"Your ears did not deceive you, guardian of Valhalla. I'm saying you lack imagination and thus the tedium is of your own design."

They spend the rest of the fight pointing fingers and complaining about each other between clashes of swords. There is no clear winner, on the battlefield or in the verbal fight.

Still, Caius must have taken the words to heart, because next fight, he _does_ turn into three dragons.

Lightning rolls her eyes, and he accused her of lack of imagination.

-x-

It's nearing the finale, and it's an odd feeling after years of fighting. She's come to expect Caius and the perpetual battlefield is normalcy for her. It suddenly strikes her that she's known and fought with Caius for longer than she's known her friends, her parents, even Serah.

It's an unsettling thought when she thrusts a sparkstrike inches from his face.

"I'm not going to miss you," she says.

"Nor I you, warrior goddess. Although perhaps in another life…"

"No, we'd still hate each other," she confirms.

He nods.

"Indeed, time and universe could not change that mouth of yours."

This time it's Lightning that smirks.

-x-

[A/N]I love both Lightning and Caius. They would make the worst roomates


End file.
